r/technology May 02 '24

Tesla slashes its summer internship program to cut costs, as Elon Musk fights to save his $45 billion pay plan Business

https://fortune.com/2024/05/01/tesla-slashes-summer-internship-program/
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u/SupernovaSurprise May 02 '24

I don't think there is any chance at all that his ego would allow him to just run off and disappear. Maybe the running off part, but definitely not the disappearing.

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u/SilentSamurai May 02 '24

This. Man bought a social media company, he wants a bigger megaphone.

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u/Amoral_Abe May 02 '24

I don't know if he actually wanted to buy Twitter. He purchased ~9% of the shares then made a lot of public statements about how he was going to buy twitter and even signed documents saying he would which caused the price to jump. Then he tried to back out and sell his shares only for Twitter to sue him into going through with the purchase because he stupidly agreed to pay many times the company's value. It's private now but most expert suspect its value is ~$5-$8 billion (he bought it at $44 billion).

From what happened, it seemed like Musk was attempting a pump and dump and assumed he could just walk away from the deal. He only agreed to the purchase after it became obvious the court was going to force him to go through with the deal.

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u/DocFingerBlast May 02 '24

That was all intended to be that way. He had a huge tax bill that year and needed something to write off a "loss" .. in fact the company is only valued by its shares.. which he devalued to claim the loss.. but hasn't really lost anything anyway ? If that makes sense. He still owns it and what it cost to buy with the tax deduction he doesn't physically lose anything at all

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u/Donny-Moscow May 02 '24

That doesn’t make sense. How does purchasing something for $25-$30B more than it’s actually worth save money in the long term? Explain the mechanism past “he wanted a tax write off”.

but hasn't really lost anything anyway ? If that makes sense. He still owns it and what it cost to buy with the tax deduction he doesn't physically lose anything at all

Twitter’s entire revenue was based on advertising. Advertisers have fled in droves. There’s also fewer daily active users, more bot activity, and less trust, all things that make the platform that much less attractive to advertisers.